Battle of Fort de Chartres

The Battle of Fort de Chartres (21 December 1786) was a battle of the Plains Indian Wars fought between the Sioux tribe of the Great Plains and Spain. The Sioux tribe assaulted the Spanish cantonment of Fort de Chartres in Spanish Louisiana (present-day Illinois) and massacred the Spanish soldiers there, taking over Upper Louisiana from the Spanish.

Prelude
Spain fought several wars against the Sioux since the early 18th century, when the Plains Nations warred with their colonists in California (at that point, a region that stretched from northern California and Colorado down to New Mexico and Texas). In 1783, a new war broke out between Spain and the Sioux tribe, and the Sioux tribe built up its forces before setting out to conquer Upper Louisiana from the Spanish and liberate the lands that the Europeans took from them. War chief Egushawa led an army of 1,065 warriors from the Dakotas to invade Upper Louisiana, and they attacked Fabricio Cruz's 438-strong Spanish cantonment at Fort de Chartres.

Battle
The Sioux war party was almost entirely made up of foot soldiers, a mixture of bowmen and tomahawk-wielding warriors, while Egushawa rode on horseback with his bodyguards. The ensuing attack saw the Spanish regulars be slaughtered at close range by the blunt and sharp weapons of the Sioux warriors, and the Sioux bowmen felled several Spanish soldiers as they tried to fight off the Sioux tribesmen. Cruz was killed in the fight, and the Sioux killed several of the smaller Spanish army's soldiers as they tried to flee. As the battle took place over a settlement, all of the Spanish soldiers were lost, either being killed or captured. The battle helped in the expansion of the Sioux tribe, and it was an early victory against Spain.